Ever since I was young, traveling the world had been my dream. I imagined myself
being in some of the most beautiful and amazing places in the world, marveling at
the scene laid out in front of me. After I entered university, I was lucky enough to
travel to over 20 countries all over the world. The interesting thing is that the most
memorable trip for me was not a trip to the most well-known place or to the most
beautiful country. In fact, I recall my trip to Luxembourg as being the most
memorable because of a very special friend that I met there.
Luxembourg is normally not a famous traveling location for Koreans. The same
applied to me – I did not know anything about the country, nor did I wish of
going there. The only reason that I went to Luxembourg in the first place was that
I had a lot of spare time. I was doing an exchange program in Amsterdam, and
was becoming tired of spending my weekends in the Netherlands.
So quite spontaneously, I booked a bus ticket to Luxembourg, for the sole reason
that it was close to where I live. I arrived in Luxembourg, having no idea where to
go. Ten minutes in the city, I could already see that my stay here was not going to
be that interesting. The streets did not have that many people, there were office
buildings everywhere, and the fortress of the city was the only real ‘tourist spot’
that people went to look at. I walked to the hostel where I would be staying for
the night, and when I opened the door of my dormitory room, I saw a girl.
Surprisingly, she was Korean, and with a few more minutes of conversation, we
discovered that we were the same age. I had never expected to meet someone of
the same nationality, let alone the same age in Luxembourg. That encounter
changed the boring trip 180 degrees into one of the most fun trips I had.
My new friend, Yejin and I walked along random streets of Luxembourg. We took
the wrong bus twice in a row, but that just made the whole thing more fun. Later,
we sat on a bench where we could look down at the whole city and just talked for
hours. We talked about things like our thoughts on relationships, on life, and how
we planned on living it. Yejin had been traveling Europe for three months until she
met me, and had experience of living in several other European countries when she
was younger. She was much more open-minded and easygoing than I was. Talking
to someone who had a completely different background from experience because
all my life, I had been surrounded by people who had similar perspectives or
values as mine. All those hours of sharing our thoughts helped me look back on
my attitude when encountering different cultures or meeting various types of
people.
That particular night in Luxembourg changed my thoughts about traveling. Before,
I had always been focused on going to the most famous, well-known tourist spots
because I thought that these places would be more worthwhile than others.
However, I now know that trips depend much more on what I make out of it,
regardless of the location, and that less well-known places can be even more fun.
I look forward more to the different people that I will be meeting at every new
place that I go to. I am still in contact with Yejin, and we promised to meet again
in Korea. I cannot wait for that day to come.